Australia has participated in every Summer Paralympic Games since the inception of the Paralympics in the year 1960. The 1976 Paralympic Games in Toronto was Australia's fifth Paralympic Games. Australia competed in 10 out of the 13 sports and were able to win medals in six of these sports. There were 44 athletes representing Australia at the Games with a number of these athletes participating in multiple sports. Of the 44 athletes, 34 were males and 10 were females. As a team, Australia won 41 medals, 16 of which were gold. This placed it just outside the top 10 in 11th position at the end of the Games. The Australian team won more gold medals at the 1976 Paralympic Games than at any of the previous four Paralympic Games. 26 athletes finished on the podium in their respective events. This represents more than half the number of athletes that Australia sent to Toronto. Six world records were broken by Australian athletes on their way to winning their respective events.
Background
The 1976 Summer Paralympic Games was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from August 4–12. This was the first and only time that Canada has hosted a Summer Paralympic Games. The Games were not held in the same city as the Olympic Games of the same year, with the 1976 Olympic Games held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. At the time, the 1976 Summer Paralympics in Toronto was called the 'Torontolympiad'. The name 'Paralympic Games' was not officially adopted until 1984. The 1976 Summer Paralympics was the first time that amputees and visionally impaired athletes were invited to participate in the Paralympic Games. For the previous four Paralympic Games, participation was restricted to spinal cord injury athletes. Other disabilities – amputees, Cerebral Palsy, Intellectual Impaired and Vision Impaired – were unable to compete at the Paralympic Games. However, they had their own local and national competitions and, in some cases, their own world championships. Canadian athletes from each of disabilities, amputees, spinal cord injuries and visually impaired, lit the flame at the Opening ceremony at Woodbine Racecourse in front of 20 000 spectators. The inclusion of more disability categories and the introduction of new sports including Shooting and Goalball increased the number of medal events at the Paralympic Games. There were 13 sports in total at the 1976 Summer Paralympics, 8 of which women participated in. The 1976 Summer Paralympics was the first Games in which there was television coverage of the events. The performances were shown to a wide audience of viewers from the Southern Ontario region. There was however, no television coverage in Australia dedicated to the 1976 Paralympic Games.
Notable Performances
The top Australian athletes at the 1976 Paralympic Games were triple gold medallists, Eric Russell and Tracey Freeman and double gold medallist, Gail Nicholson.
Eric Russell
Eric Russell won three Gold medals as well as a silver medal at his first Paralympic Games. Russell won the discus, shot put and the pentathlon events. He also competed in wheelchair basketball but did not win a medal as the team did not advance pass the group round stage. Russell won the Men's Discus 3 event with a world record throw of 27.15 metres. David Williamson of the United States placed second with a throw of 25.57 metres. Russell went on to compete at two more Paralympic Games, winning a total of 4 gold medals, 1 silver and 2 bronze throughout his career.
Tracey Freeman
Tracey Freeman competed at her first Paralympics in 1972 and represented Australia for a second time in 1976. At the 1976 Paralympic Games, Freeman won a medal in 5 of the 6 events in which she competed in. Freeman competed in a number of track and field events including shot put, the javelin, discus and sprint races and achieved a world record for every event in which she won a gold medal. In 1972, Freeman became the first female athlete to win a gold medal for Australia in a track and field event at the Paralympic Games. She went on to win a total of six gold medals and four silver medals making her one of the most successful Paralympians of her time to represent Australia. Her performance in Toronto made her the most successful Australian athlete at the 1976 games. Freeman's incredible effort earned her the Queensland Sportswomen of the Year Award, the first time it has been given to a disabled athlete, and marked the end of her international career. Her career only spanned two Paralympics, as the injuries from a car accident thwarted her efforts to qualify for the 1980 Paralympics, but she won 10 medals, six of which were gold.